


(Not) Enough

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 14:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18470515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "First posting on any kink meme or forum thing so I’m sorry if I’m doing something wrong!So I just started playing the ROTG game for the DS and North says something like “You’re not alone. You never were” to Jack.So I’d really like to see something with the other guardians (or other spirits) watching over Jack without him knowing it"First of all, can I just say that that’s a weird line for North to say to Jack? Maybe it makes more sense in the game.Anyway, this is a little 5+1 where the Guardians are doing what they think is enough for Jack, because usually they’re nearly as solitary as he is.





	(Not) Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 4/15/2015.

Jack had thought himself alone. There was nothing to be done about that, now, and there was little to explain. The Guardians had not realized how much  _more_  Jack needed.  
  
When the snow fell softly on Christmas eve, when the hills were prepared to be perfect for sleds the next day, when happy couples got snowed in within cozy little houses, North had thought he had been communicating with Jack. Though they exchanged no words when their paths crossed, North made sure to salute him, the bringer of all the longed-for white Christmases. But their paths had never crossed closely enough for Jack to recognize the salute for what it was, and so he continued his endless fruitless attempts to break into the pole.  
  
Tooth’s way of looking after children had always been at once distant and extremely close. She guarded the memories in the teeth her fairies brought, and encountered nothing else of the outside world. In her palace there were wonders enough. She noticed, naturally, that one of the tooth boxes held a child’s memories long after any ordinary child would have grown old and died. She maintained this tooth box herself, keeping it on a shelf in her private rooms. She did not know that a wall of moonlight separated the memories from their owner when she diligently activated them.  
  
Bunny and Jack had clashed as soon as they met, had been clashing as soon as they had encountered the other’s work. It was nothing if not natural. But Bunny had never driven Jack’s work back faster than he should have, even when he thought Jack was really pushing his limits on how long he could linger. Bunny knew they were part of a balance, one that required a lot of delicate work to maintain. The Blizzard of ’68 had seemed a deliberate break in their détente.  
  
Silent Sandy, voiceless but never expressionless, found Jack soon after he was pulled from the lake, and had sent him a dream in greeting at once, not even waiting until he was asleep. Jack had been gentle with the dream, brushing the dreamsand with cool fingertips as it changed with his thoughts. The dreamsand didn’t only respond to Jack’s thoughts, of course, and Sandy thought they had had a very good conversation. Over the years, Jack was always so glad for the dreams, for the permission Sandy gave for him to touch the strands of dreamsand, that he did not realize how much Jack needed words from someone.   
  
When Jamie looked at the snow drifts, smooth-sided and sharp edged; when he looked at snowflakes, each one always unique, when he looked at feathery patterns of frost and the fantastical shapes of dripping icicles, he often thought that someone must be responsible for such things, that they were too much like art to only or always be made by nature alone. But no one else ever mentioned that there might be someone like that just for snow, and he didn’t know how to ask.  
  
And so Jack was never asked anything, and he never asked anything himself. The world worked a certain way, and while there would be no less, there would also be no more.  
  
It was rather lucky for Jack, then, that not all spirits were so polite about it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: Nice final line there. :)


End file.
